State has 'gone long enough doing nothing'

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, February 22, 2008

"I would have loved a transitional program," said Pollitt, who was released last fall after serving 24 years in prison.

"Being under house arrest is not a transitional program." observed Pollitt, who is living with his sister and her family in Southbury. "Staying behind these four walls isn't transitioning me for anything."

Tracy Shaw, who lives in Pollitt's neighborhood, also believes a transitional program with some type of supervision is vital for former inmates' reintegration into society.

"It would not only help him manage his stress, but it would also help to manage our fears," she said. "It's a necessary step."

William Carbone, executive director of Court Support Services in the state, said there are three elements missing from Connecticut's probation system for sexual offenders: transitional housing, inpatient treatment programs and supportive housing.

"We need the appropriate funding for some transitional and supportive housing programs for this population," he said.

"We estimate that more than a quarter of those going onto probation don't have stable housing, which is why they often end up in homeless shelters, and that makes supervision more difficult," Carbone explained. "It doesn't contribute to good public safety."

Carbone said transitional housing would provide temporary residences for released sexual offenders who are trying to get back on their feet by finding a job and an apartment. Similar transitional programs already exist in the state for nonviolent offenders.

"Supportive housing is a program for those who can return to their communities but need a place to live where they can be carefully monitored and have access to support services so they can be successful in their rehabilitation," Carbone said.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who organized a task force to study the state's justice system, has called for a variety of measures, including community-based treatment programs and increased funding for housing and job programs.

"These programs reduce recidivism and give ex-offenders the support and services they need to stay crime-free," the governor said. "Most importantly, they are proven ways of keeping our communities safer."

Eileen Redden, the health service administrator for the Department of Correction, said sex offender treatment programs are available to prisoners. However, the programs are voluntary. Officials use the hope of parole as an incentive for inmates to participate.

Redden said group therapy sessions are also available in the last five years of a prisoner's sentence to help in his transition.

"We build on what is called a good life model," she said. "We help to enhance their positive attributes and characteristics while avoiding their negative triggers and their propensity to use alcohol and drugs."

Even with the program, though, Redden agrees much more can be done.

"We do the best with the resources we have," she said. "All of us in the field are advocating to get more transitional housing for people leaving corrections. The support to help these men transition into the community would be enormously helpful and increase their chance for success."

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, chairman of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, has proposed a 200-bed facility to provide transitional housing for sex offenders. The secure facility, he said, could be used during the last few months of their sentences.

"It's better for everyone involved to have an intermediate step," Lawlor said. "I'm sure it would have made it easier for the neighborhood to have (Pollitt) in their community."

The lawmaker has also proposed enhancing re-entry programs, expanding the state's partnerships with nonprofit community service providers to manage those programs and adding more probation and parole officers.

Carbone said probation officers who deal with sexual offenders often supervise as many as 40 clients - a caseload he would like to see reduced. "More probation officers would allow us to provide more effective supervision of sex offenders in the community," he said.

Carbone added that most officials in the field - as well as the federal government - recommend that probation officers who supervise sexual offenders have no more than 25 cases at a time. The state's probation department would need an additional 20 officers to bring current caseloads within those standards, he said.

Some officials have advocated for a civil confinement program similar to one put into place recently in New York, where more than 2,700 sexual offenders are being held in special treatment centers indefinitely after their sentences are complete.

"For civil confinement you have to prove that someone has a psychiatric abnormality," Lawlor said, adding that people in Connecticut can already be confined to a mental health facility if they are proven to be a danger to themselves. "This would just be a variation of that."

Lawlor added, however, that many sexual offenders - including Pollitt - wouldn't qualify for such a program. And the costs would be enormous.

"Not only would it cost about half a million dollars a year per inmate, but we would also have to build a separate facility that would be run like a hospital and a prison," he said.

Most officials agree the solution - whether increased supervision, more programs or supportive housing - is going to cost money. The bigger problem, especially with supportive housing, is where to locate such facilities.

"That's the greatest barrier," Carbone said.

He said that the public has to realize supportive and transitional housing programs don't bring more sex offenders into the community but provide more supervision than what's currently available.

"All of the options are expensive and all involve complicated decisions," Lawlor said. "But they are choices we have to make.

"We've gone long enough doing nothing," he concluded, "and now we have to do something."

Contact Dirk Perrefort at dperrefort@newstimes.com or at (203) 731-3358.